INDEPENDENT REGULATORY BODY NEEDED FOR OIL INDUSTRY (PAGE 29, MARCH 13, 2010)

THE lack of an independent regulatory body is seriously hampering discussions between key players in the oil industry and the government.
At a discussion with media personnel touring the floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel currently under construction in Singapore, the key players called for an independent regulatory body.
The industry players were of the view that even though the Ministry of Energy currently acts as the regulatory body and was doing a great job, that was not enough.
According to them, whenever there was a change of government or ministerial reshuffle the new government or minister would have to start learning from the scratch. But where there is an independent regulatory body, any change of government or reshuffle will not affect any discussions and negotiations in that sector.
When asked if it would best to appoint the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) as the regulatory body, the industry players said that would not serve their interest since GNPC was a partner in the industry.
In his remarks, Mr Dai Jones, President of Tullow Oil Ghana, told the Daily Graphic that an independent regulatory body was very important.
He said there were many examples that Ghana had to look at to ensure that the best teams were put in place to ensure continuous business.
He said even though the ministry was a good start, there was the need for the independent body and added that GNPC could not play that role due to its marriage with Tullow Oil and partners.
Mr Thomas Manu of GNPC said the issue of an independent regulatory body was very important and it was about time they started training or building the human resource to be able to handle that effectively.
He indicated that experts that would be appointed to man the regulatory institution had to be strong technocrats who would be one step ahead of the industry players.
“Therefore, we cannot just appoint anybody to that office or assume the role of regulator. If that happens, the industry players would rather be ahead and that would not be in the best interest of the country,” he said.
There is the need for it, he said, but first the capacity of the people must be built to ensure that able and capable people were appointed.
Asked if the experts from the GNPC and the Energy Ministry could be used as a starter, he said the best thing to do was to build the required human resource to handle it.